A ‘most difficult’ EU summit

By Zoya Sheftalovich

Terrorist attacks and tense negotiations over migration and Greece cast a pall over the meeting.

Terrorist attacks in three countries Friday overshadowed the end of a two-day summit of European leaders, who agreed on weak efforts to stem the migrant crisis and postponed negotiations over Greece’s crippling debt.
French President François Hollande left a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras after learning that two men carrying the black flag of the Islamic State had attacked a gas canister factory near the French city of Lyon. One man was killed, two others were injured.
In Tunisia, at least 28 were slayed by gunmen who opened fire in the resort town of Sousse. Among the dead were tourists from Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain, as well as two Tunisians, according to the BBC.
In Kuwait, a suicide bomber killed at least 25 in a Shiite mosque. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.
After expressing his condolences, European Council President Donald Tusk said the heads of state would present a new security strategy to combat the rising threat of hybrid warfare, global terrorism and cyber attacks. But it’s not expected until June 2016.
“Europeans must invest in their own defense to deal with a dramatically changed security environment,” he said. “We decided that EU funds should be mobilized to help strengthen Europe’s defense industry, including in research and technology.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg joined one of the meetings Friday to discuss the new threats facing Europe.
EU finance ministers will meet yet again Saturday afternoon in Brussels to try to hammer out a debt relief package to avoid a Greek default and keep the country in the eurozone.
“We can only hope that Greece’s internal procedures will lead tomorrow to the agreement we are striving for,” Merkel said. She described the creditors’ latest proposal as “very generous,” and said that she didn’t have a “plan B.”
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, in Frankfurt, said there was a 50-50 chance of reaching a deal with Greece.
In Brussels, Tsipras said, “The European principles have not been based on blackmail and ultimatums. In particular, in these crucial hours, no one has the right to endanger these principles.”
The Council briefly discussed the U.K.’s plans to hold a vote by 2017 on its membership in the EU. The issue will be back on the table at the summit in December.
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said he will set up a working group to keep him informed on what the U.K. “does and does not do” in the lead up to the referendum. It will be headed by Jonathan Faull, currently the director general of the EU’s internal market.
The leaders argued into the early morning hours Friday over a mandatory mechanism to settle 40,000 asylum seekers flooding Europe’s southern states. The fate of another 20,000 refugees rests on voluntary acceptance by member countries.
The Council’s statement of conclusions calls for a “temporary and exceptional relocation over two years” from Italy and Greece. All member states (except the U.K., Ireland and Denmark) “will agree by consensus by the end of July on the distribution of such persons.”
While the Council meeting was meant to discuss longer-term economic strategies for the telecoms sector and a digital single market, these issues appeared to get little but lip service.
Laimdota Straujuma, prime minister of Latvia, sent a missive to her colleagues in the European Parliament on the stalemate over telecoms reforms.
“The presidency has worked very hard towards the abolition of roaming charges in the EU and to prepare the first common rules on open Internet in the EU,” she said.
Time is running out to reach a telecoms accord deal under the six-month Latvian presidency of the Parliament, which shifts to Luxembourg at the end of the month.
On Monday, the Parliament, Council and Commission will hold their fourth round of negotiations over mobile phone roaming charges and rules for Internet access. The chances of success remain unclear.
The leaders were evidently weary at the end.
“It was in fact one of the most difficult European Councils I remember,” said Tusk.